


Swallowed in the Sea

by Debate



Category: Baccano!
Genre: Baccano! Secret Santa, Gen, Huey is Bad At Feelings, M/M, Pre-Slash, Unconscious Pining, a lot of ocean metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-14 01:26:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9150721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Debate/pseuds/Debate
Summary: Huey tries to act like he's fine the day after Szilard attacks.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yonnna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yonnna/gifts).



Elmer slept like an infant, flat on his back with his legs outstretched, hands grasping and twitching every so often. The metaphor was further strengthened by the rocking of the boat, a natural cradle.

It would have been reassuring to see him in so peaceful a slumber, if it were not for the fact that he looked so un-Elmer like.

After all he couldn’t control whether he smiled in his sleep, and to see even a neutral expression on his face was unfamiliar and disquieting. Huey hadn’t noticed it the previous nights, where silhouettes of black on black left such small facial details indistinguishable. But they had both retired early after the mayhem of the previous evening, and for the first time since they set sail the dusk light still hung in the air of their cabin when they took to their beds.

Elmer had drifted off almost immediately, his body exhausted even if his mind would have liked to stay up the rest of the night, goading smiles out of Maiza and Miss Lumiere. Huey had no such luck.

He took to blaming his present insomnia on the hard and cramped bed, Elmer’s snores, seasickness, anything but the frantic thoughts in his mind that all seemed to circle around the sleeping form an arm’s width away.

He wasn’t supposed to be worried about Elmer. The man was infuriating and annoying and had no real sense of personal boundaries. Even more so, he was immortal; he would never die, physical harm would not befall him, and the only other threat to his perpetually continued existence was floundering in the Atlantic Ocean miles behind them. There was no reason for Huey to be acting like a mother watching over her newborn to ensure they were still breathing.

Yet he did, for the remainder of the night.

The next morning proved that immortality would be no end to exhaustion, as the sun rose without Huey having a wink of sleep.

He watched tired, but no less enraptured, as the rising sun began to move its way across Elmer’s face, like it would a waxing moon.

It was only several moments later that a smile stretched across his face and his eyes blinked open, almost immediately meeting Huey’s gaze.

“Good morning, Huey! How about a smile to celebrate this new day?”

Huey let his blazé expression speak for itself, seeking the opportunity to get out of his uncomfortable bed now that he didn’t have to fear waking Elmer prematurely. He buttoned his vest with his back to Elmer, unwilling to see his own tunic stretched too tight over Elmer’s chest after he had surrendered it last night so Elmer might have something dry to sleep in.

“What do you think we should do today Huey?” He asked, as if they had innumerable options aboard the boat.

Huey, again, denied him a response.

"Come on now Huey, don’t be cranky! Give us a smile, it’s a new day and that old bloke Szilard is gone! Why don’t we pay Maiza a visit? Our friendly faces will surely get a smile out of him!”

“Why don’t you reserve some tact?” Huey snapped, gathering his hair to tie back, “I fail to see any circumstances in which he would be pleased to see you, the man would probably much rather be alone.”

Elmer’s uncharacteristic silence urged Huey to look over his shoulder. His expression was pensive and his smile restrained, as if he was seriously considering what Huey had said. Noticing that Huey was looking, Elmer said,

“Not everyone is like you Huey. Don’t you think it’s good to have your friends around?”

“It’s no pleasure having you around,” Huey muttered, the sharp comment more a habit than an attempt at an actual insult.

“Hm, I don’t think so,” Elmer teased, “I think that you like having me around, I mean you were watching me sleep, right?”

“You’re mistaken,” Huey said. Fed up of the conversation and the stuffiness of the cabin, he opened the door to and wound his way through the hull of the ship to reach the deck and the fresh air.

Of course the conversation he sought to abandon was easily continued as Elmer trailed behind him.

“Oh, come on now Huey, you aren’t trying to avoid me, right?”

“Hardly possible, on a ship when there’s nowhere to go.”

The sky was clear on the deck, but the wind was fierce. Huey was no expert on sailing, despite having lived in a harbor city for a large portion of his life, but even he could tell it was a good day for travel, the sails billowed above his head like laundry hanging to dry, like the skirt of a dress on a cliff…

“Except the ocean,” Elmer observed. With the wind as gusty as it was it was no surprise that the surf was acting up, crashing against the boards, but even so Elmer seemed calm as he looked out to the horizon.

The ocean was terrible. How easily she changed her appearance, gentle and peaceful one day, tumultuous and stormy the next. A witch in disguise.

And Huey had to steady himself, impossible against the rocking boat, as he watched Elmer watch the sea. Had to control his breathing so it wasn’t to deep, to shallow.

Had to keep his hands relaxed at his side, rather than curl them into fists. Had to stop himself from feeling anger, indignant passion.

Huey had never quite thought of Elmer as being foolish, an idiot perhaps, but not someone easily hoaxed.

And yet it seemed even he had been fooled by the sea.

“An option you seem to think is viable,” Huey said, not angry or frustrated or any other emotion that would be telling.

Elmer looked confused for a second before he seemed to recall the previous night.

“Well it was the best option given the circumstances, sure Szilard had been smiling for most of the night, but he was upsetting everyone else…”

Huey could have growled in frustration, annoyed at how Elmer couldn’t seem to perceive that Huey didn’t care about anyone else on the boat.

“It was the best option to fling yourself into the ocean?” Huey said, as detached as he could make himself, because Elmer didn’t get it. Elmer didn’t understand the body-shaking, throat-clenching horror Huey had experienced as he watched, detached, as Elmer tipped over the side of the boat. Thinking about how the ocean only ever took and took and took.

And the worse part, had been the happy smile upon Elmer’s face as he had begun sinking to the depths, where Huey had feared he would never emerge, newfound immortality completely forgotten. Elmer would disagree, but smiles like that all looked the same. Smiles of people taken by sirens.

“Yes,” Elmer said, because he didn’t understand.

Huey could only breath as he looked at Elmer. He was standing beside him, not drowned and waterlogged, not fish food; they were immortal now, for better or worse, for better, Huey was sure.

He took a step up so they were shoulder to shoulder, leaning on the railing, watching the sea, his life changing on the whims of the tides.


End file.
